Was
a time when the relentless flow of new Gorillaz material
seemed to come not just from a desire to capture each new
creative leap – in both Damon Albarn’s music and Jamie
Hewlett’s graphic design – but also to assert their claim
to being the most modern band on the planet. After a
seven-year lay-off between albums, however, and a
well-publicised spat between Gorillaz’s two creative
masterminds, the group now returns to a very different
world indeed. At least technology has somewhat caught up
with their lofty ambitions. If Hewlett was once concerned
that his visuals had taken a back seat to Albarn’s music,
with Humanz he more than asserts how vital they are
to the whole project, turning in a stunning virtual
reality video for Saturnz Barz – and casually breaking the
record for YouTube VR video views in the process.

In fact, if anything, the initial concern may have been
over the music. When Hallelujah Money was released on the
same day as Trump’s inauguration, it seemed an easy shot –
not just that, but a song that could have been recorded at
any point in 2016, held back to make a sarky statement no
matter which candidate had won the presidency. The music
was an uneasy, shifting soundscape that would have been
compelling enough on its own, but Benjamin Clementine’s
vocals were suffocating, and it seemed as though the new
material would fall into the same trap as previous album Plastic
Beach: too much message, not enough music you actually
want to listen to.

In situ, as the penultimate track on Humanz, Hallelujah
Money works – but that’s also largely because the majority
of the preceding 12 tracks find Gorillaz fully
rejuvenated. Kanye West might have made bold claims as to The
Life Of Pablo’s status as a gospel album, but on
Ascension, Albarn takes Kanye’s ADHD tendencies,
interjects blasts of gospel harmonies and arguably more
convincingly plants his flag in that territory. And then
he goes even bolder, placing Mavis Staples alongside Pusha
T on Let Me Out for a ghostly cut that’s something of an
auditory manifestation of death’s limbo.

The aforementioned Ascension sets the scene for a
skittish, fragmented work that, yes, somewhat reasserts
Gorillaz’s cutting-edge credentials. The only thing Humanz settles
into is grooves, but even a relatively straightforward
hip-hop song such as Momentz is antsy, switching from
loping beats to hallucinatory, high-pitched vocals and
electro breakdowns that seem to want to get the song over
with as quickly as possible.

Such is the burden of a relentless flow of ideas. Humanz’s
flaw is what gives it its energy: like the scattered
flashes of (mis) information flying out from every
handheld and household device, the album throws it all at
you in one gloriously delirious barrage that has no real
anchor. Richly energised and energising, it’s not only
infectious for the listener: Charger gets the best out of
Grace Jones, with her most disconnected and disdainful
vocal since Warm Leatherette, and the presence of some of
the most exciting rappers of the moment (Vince Staples,
Danny Brown) shows that Albarn’s knack for tapping into
the zeitgeist remains undiminished.

Recording the album Albarn reportedly told his
collaborators to imagine a world in which Donald Trump had
won the election. Humanz emerges as the perfect
soundtrack to that reality. In a world obsessed with “fake
news”, this virtual band’s confused tantrum feels like a
very real response.